


Lunch

by Belle_Evans



Category: due South
Genre: AU, Harlequin, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 17:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11810364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle_Evans/pseuds/Belle_Evans
Summary: Prompt #55 [info]ds_harlequin Benton Fraser has quit his post in the RCMP to rediscover life following the death of his father. He moves to Chicago where he meets Ray Vecchio who has recently divorced but are either of them ready for a new relationship?Original Author’s Note to self: Only pick one prompt to do, not three.  I did not create these characters, but I have enjoyed manipulating them. And uh, I have yet to win the Lotto, so no money.





	Lunch

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote three fics for the ds_harlequin - Snapshots, this one and Untitled. All originally posted in 2007.
> 
> Original Prompt Post: http://ds-harlequin.livejournal.com/1516.html in case anyone is interested. Some of them, I don't think were ever filled. Maybe I'll take a crack at a new one.

LUNCH

Detective Ray Vecchio sat on the park bench and made a conscious effort to let go of the tension in his shoulders. The same effort he made each time he came to the park. It had gotten better, easier. Each time it took a little less time, but still the relaxation wasn’t quite effortless.

The shrink he’d seen almost four weeks okay was right. Taking his lunch in the park, each day that he could swing it, did make a difference. He made sure to swing it more days than not. It gave him the space to remind himself that the dark time he was experiencing in his personal life, the darkness that he saw in his work, was not the darkness of the entire world.

One of the park regulars, an actual mom, not a nanny, waved at him and he lifted his hand in return and grinned. That kind of attention couldn’t help but stroke a man’s ego. She wasn’t the only woman with a stroller who shot attention his way. There were a few who made it a point to say hello to him, to once in a while stop at his bench long enough to exchange a few words. He enjoyed the flirting and the babies were cute. It was harmless on both sides. They were by and large married and he was by and large not getting involved with anyone again for a very long time. And they had no idea he was a cop.

He let his gaze drift. Taking in the usual suspects. His eyes swept and then swept again. Then, stopped.. Something wasn’t right. It took Ray just a moment to put his finger on what was wrong. The homeless guy was missing. The homeless guy who was like clockwork. Each day, since Ray had begun taking his lunch in the park the guy had been there.

Same two flannel shirts one red, one blue, same worn jeans and scuffed hiking boots. The weather was mild enough that the guy could get away with not having a jacket or coat. Once Ray had seen him with a green duffle on the bench beside him. The Detective figured most days the guy must have stashed his stuff under some brush somewhere. He seemed harmless enough. The lengthy conversations the man held with himself and sometimes apparently his dog so far hadn’t caused any problems as far as Ray could see. The guy let the kids talk to the dog, play with the dog. The animal appeared to be extremely well-behaved. The moms didn’t seem to be freaked out by the guy. The Detective wasn’t completely sure, but he thought that some of the moms might actually have been giving the homeless guy the eye. Ray figured him for turfed mental patient homeless and not addict homeless. So far, if the other regulars were cool with it, Ray was happy to leave it alone.

It wasn’t uncommon, the Detective knew for a person adrift to haunt a place for awhile then disappear, but this absence unsettled him. An anomaly in his alternative peaceful world. Shaking the creases out of this pants, he stretched his legs. He took a three sixty view of the area which produced nothing but the people he had already seen. Absently, Ray took a step and started walking toward a more densely landscaped area of the park. Leave it alone, you’re going to ruin this whispered through his head, but he kept walking.

The first glimpse he caught of the man was a flash of familiar red through a cluster of bushes near the outskirts of the park. As he drew closer, Ray could see that the man’s arms were in the air like he was emphasizing an important point and his mouth was moving. From his vantage point, the Detective couldn’t hear anything so he inched closer and rounded behind the other man. His change of position put him close enough to see the man only from the waist up and to see that there was noone in front of him. It also put him close enough to hear the man say "...pay and pay and pay," as his dark head tilted to look skyward. The tension crept back into the Detective’s shoulders. He fell into a loose shooting stance. Just in case. He considered flashing his badge, but changed his mind.

"Is everything okay here?"

Ray Vecchio’s wholly inappropriate thought as the crazy guy turned to face him and he got his first really up close look at the other man was god, he’s too good looking to be nuts. And then he realized that the man was answering his question.

"No Detective -" That jolted Ray, but he didn’t let on. "Everything is not okay. He -" and at this the guy pointed emphatically downward. Ray edged around the bushes until he could see what he couldn’t before. The white dog who, Ray thought for a second, looked bored.

"He has really been quite incorrigible today. Since so many of the children here are fond of Diefenbaker, I saw no need to give him his much needed dressing down in front of them. I do not think that they would understand."

"Okay." At least, Ray thought, the guy still had it together enough not to pitch this strange fit in the middle of the park.

"And now you’re finished with the um, ‘dressing down’." Before he could answer, the dog, Diefenwhatsit, turned suddenly and leapt. Then Ray was going down, down, flat on his back.

"Hey, hey, hey get off me." The dog paid no attention as he got down to the serious business of nuzzling the pocket of Ray’s coat. The Detective pushed and shoved until he was out from under the animal enough to push himself upright.

"Dief, really! Were you not listening to me at all? Stop that this instant."

"What’s wrong with him?"

"I really --" The man stopped for a minute and took in the full measure of Diefenbaker’s behavior. "You don’t happen to have a pastry in your pocket do you Detective?"

"A what? Oh, oh." Ray dislodged a wet nose enough to work his hand into his pocket. He held up a half eaten Danish wrapped in plastic. Diefenbaker immediately went for it.

"HEY."

"DIEF!"

Danish firmly clenched between his jaws, the animal gave both men a triumphant look before trotting away. Ray watched after him and couldn’t help but grin. He’d forgotten all about the danish. He’d begun eating it for breakfast when a witness he really needed to talk to turned up. Goodbye danish, hello dog food.

Running his hand down his molested coat, Ray straightened its lines and brushed away the residual dog hair and grass.

"I think your furball ruined my suit. Your dog always like that?"

"Wolf."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Diefenbaker is a wolf."

"You have a wolf running around the city attacking people."

"Very specific people apparently. He’s quite harmless."

Ray shot him a dark look.

"Well, I mean - " Ray watched as the other man brushed his thumb across his eyebrow.

"All of his paperwork is in order Detective." He finished quietly.

"How do you know I’m a cop."

"The way you carry yourself. I’ve seen how keenly you watch people. And even though your suit is very finely tailored, your shoulder holster displaces the line of the suit jacket by three millimeters."

Ray gaped openly, until he realized that he was catching some of the little bugs that flew around the park. His mouth clamped shut, but not for long.

"You see that? I got a stain, a grass stain. This suit is ruined. The dog, I mean wolf’s got paperwork. I need to see his and I need to see yours. "

"Oh, yes. Sorry. Detective."

The man reached into his pocket, produced first a wallet and then a driver’s license. Ray took the license handed to him, inspected it closely, held it up to the sunlight, ran his finger over both the front and back sides.

"Benton Fraser? Canada, huh? How long you been in Chicago."

"Four weeks."

It dawns on Ray. "You work at the Consulate down the street."

"Occasionally. I am currently assisting them on an on call basis."

"You been watching me, why?" And how come I didn’t realize remained unspoken.

"Old habits."

"You were on the job for the Canucks?"

The man looked down and away. "I was with the RCMP."

"A Mountie?"

"Former Mountie. Detective -

"Just Ray." He extends his hand. "Ray Vecchio."

"It’s nice to meet you De..I mean Ray. I apologize for the circumstances. And I am sure once Dief shakes the powdered sugar off his fur, he will express his deep regret as well. I do not think that I can afford to replace your suit, but please allow me to buy you another pastry."

Ray chuckled. "I think I’m off pastries for the moment, but you buy me a hotdog from the cart up the street and we’re on our way to getting square."

"Ah, I am sorry to say I know it well."

It was their first lunch together and the beginning of a routine. Ray always remembered to bring something for the wolf. Sometimes he did it just to hear Benny scold the deaf Diefenbaker. Hell of a name for a wolf. To much name, he thought. The same way that Benton was too much name for his friend. He’d immediately started calling him Benny.

Turned out Ray was right about the flirting. The moms did flirt with Benny as he stammered and blushed and did his best to fend them off politely. It occurred to the Detective that Benton Fraser was a nice guy, a really nice guy. A good catch. Just the sort of guy the family hoped that his younger sister Frannie would go for instead of the losers she brought home. Ray shuddered. His sister would eat Benton Fraser alive.

 

"Is it a case?"

"My sister."

"Francesca or Maria?"

"Frannie."

"Everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah." Ray replied as he smiled and vowed to himself that Benny’s and Frannie’s paths would never cross.

Of course the Detective had checked out Benton Fraser’s story when he got back to the precinct after that first lunch. The identification looked legit and the story sounded true, but the man had also been having a full on conversation with a wolf he claimed was deaf.

Ray had to let the real world in to the park just a little bit. He ended up losing almost half a day reading up on his new acquaintance. The indictments, the testimony. A son, the star witness for the prosecution. The resignation. The photo of Benton Fraser as he left the RCMP headquarters in civilian clothes. The look on the ex-Mountie’s face in the newspaper photo had remained with Ray the rest of that day. The man in that photo definitely looked like someone who needed a green interlude.

In the subsequent weeks they met for lunch in the park, or dinner usually at a Ray chosen restaurant if neither of their schedules permitted lunch. Once they’d gone to Benny’s apartment. The very next day Ray started checking the classifieds for a better place for his friend.

They talked about Ray’s cases. The questions the ex-Mountie asked and the observations he made told Ray that he must have been very good at his job. But Benny never talked about the cases in the context of his former career. He told Ray stories about his childhood that sometimes included his murdered father, but nothing about his RCMP career. Instead the career, or potential career he talked about was coaching.

Through a Consulate contact Benton Fraser’s name was added to the list of candidates under consideration to coach a new local semi-pro hockey team. He told Ray that he didn’t think he had a chance, but that he enjoyed the process. He reveled in the opportunity to share his love for the sport in a teaching capacity.

And though Ray sometimes went cross-eyed when Benny talked hockey and plans for the team should he be hired, after all Vecchio was a basketball man, Ray enjoyed listening. Benny’s whole demeanor changed when he talked about hockey. He was happy and it was contagious.

When Benny was hired, Ray took him to one of his favorite places for dinner and got everyone in the joint to toast his friend’s accomplishment. The Detective hadn’t realized anyone could blush that deeply.

With the start of his friend’s new career they didn’t see each other as often as they had before. The park was almost always out and Ray found that it didn’t feel the same without his friend sitting on the bench beside him. Benny gave him the team’s practice schedule and all access clearance. Ray substituted the hockey rink for the park. Benny wasn’t always able to eat with him so Ray just sat in the stands with his lunch and watched Benny work. He also found that all that yammering Benny had done actually sunk in. He understood what he was watching. When lunch wasn’t feasible, they had dinner. Lately, they had been having a lot of dinners. And that hadn’t gone unnoticed.

"Where are you going Raimondo?" Ray kept patting his pockets absentmindedly as he checked for his keys.

"Out Ma. I’m going out."

"Where?"

"Ma, I’m a grown man. Grown men go out."

"Every night. You’re out every night. I hardly see you anymore. I know how much you loved Angela. I worry about you, sometimes there is so much of your father in you. I worry that you’re in the bars like he was."

That drew Ray up short. He looked at his mother and saw the genuine worry on her face.

"It’s not like that Ma. I just, I’m just hanging out with a new friend."

"And you’re ashamed to bring her to the house."

Ray grinned. "No, no Ma. It’s not that kind of friend. It’s just a guy, new in town doesn’t know very many people."

"Well bring him to dinner and he’ll get to know six more people."

"Ma!"

" I’ll think you’re in a bar if you don’t."

"You send Frannie on an errand or something. I don’t want her to scare the poor guy to death."

****************

Ray found his friend sitting on top of the picnic table in the middle of the yard watching Dief explore.

"I’m glad that you could come tonight Benny." He said as he sat down beside the other man.

"I was glad of the invitation. You speak so often of your family, it’s as though I already know them. It was nice to finally be able to put faces to the stories. It’s too bad Francesca was unable to join us."

"They can be kind of overwhelming."

"I enjoyed it. It was nice to feel a part of a family."

"I think you’ve just acquired a couple of nieces and nephews."

"I’m honored Ray."

"Yeah? You wait ‘til they start hitting you up for tickets, then tell me how honored you feel."

"I suspect I will still feel honored."

"Okay Benny, okay." He said as a wide, pleased smile spread across his face. A smile that lingered and deepened.

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"It’s just been a long time."

"Since?"

"I had a new guy friend. A guy not from the neighborhood. It’s easy when you’re young. You play a pick up game of basketball together once and you’re friends for life. But when you get older, the cop thing. That puts an immediate kibosh on some friendships. Friends just sort of fall away. Think you’re gonna bust ‘em for all the shit they’re into. And you think if they respected you they would stop doing that shit anyway. Then you get married and it’s all couple stuff, which I was part of a couple so that was okay. But now -"

The grin got a little bigger as Ray punched Benny playfully in the shoulder.

"I’m glad to be your friend Ray."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. During my time with the RCMP, I was not exactly in favor with my colleagues. There were some that felt that perhaps I had been appointed not on my merits but my father’s. And when I showed that I was equal to the job there were those who thought that I’d come about my skills through the unfair benefit of having Bob Fraser to train me."

"Couldn’t win for losing."

"No. The irony of course is that my father wasn’t there. The upbringing given to me by my grandparents didn’t leave me with very much in the way of skills to bridge the gap with my peers."

"When we were getting divorced, the guys kept telling me all of these stories about how it could mess me up, you know. And you’d hear things about how so and so’s old lady left them and they sort of went of the deep end or ate their service weapon. And I’m a mook whose licensed to carry a gun and my sister’s got kids. I started to think that I might get dangerous to the kids or something so I went to a shrink. We talked some. She said not to keep it inside. The things that I would feel. She said that would be a disaster, especially for a cop. I only went that one time, but that stuck with me. Not to let things fester. It’s cause of her I started going to the park. Cause of her you and I met. She also said that I would have feelings that maybe I had never had before. Rage, grief, jealousy.

"That makes sense Ray."

"Yeah, it does. Except that some of the things that I’m feeling especially tonight, don’t have anything to do with jealousy, rage or grief.

Stretching his hand towards Benny, Ray’s fingers traced the outline of his friend’s cheek and hairline. He waited for Benny to punch him or in Benny like matter ask him politely to stop. Waited for it to feel weird. Those things didn’t happen.

Instead he leaned slightly into the touch and asked

"Why did you and your wife divorce?"

"She wanted kids. When she was ready. I wasn’t. I thought I just needed more time. And she gave me that. But I realized seeing what I see everyday; I don’t think that I could make a child a part of that. I don’t think that I could explain why the world is the way that it is. But those babies in the park....nights like tonight I look at my nieces and nephews, they’re so beautiful, so full of life. And maybe I do want my own piece of that."

"I’m sorry."

Vecchio shrugged as he dropped his hand. "What can you do? What about you? Any little hockey players in your future."

"I’m not...children are not...perhaps if my parents were still living I would feel more of a compunction. As I am all that remains of my family, I do not feel the necessity. I rather enjoy being untethered. It allows me the freedom to do this, spend time with a friend without other demands.

Ray grinned at him. "Except for the team."

Ray watched as Benny’s tongue darted out and briefly tasted his own bottom lip. "I don’t imagine ever not being able to find time for you Ray." And Ray Vecchio blushed.

**************

Ray Vecchio only gave the patrol officer half his attention as he relayed the details of the arrest. The other half of his attention, the most intense part of his concentration was focused just a few feet away on Benton Fraser. His heart trip hammered in his chest as he watched the paramedics apply antiseptic to a cut on Benny’s head that just moments ago had been dripping blood.

The Officer asked him another question, but Ray had already turned to walk away. And he didn’t stop moving until he was standing right beside Benny. And he didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. With barely a glance at the paramedic, he bent low and kissed Benny like he was giving him the kiss of life.

The startled recipient of the kiss made a small noise in the back of his throat and then he opened to receive it, eagerly.

"Uh, Detective? Detective?"

 

"Yeah," Ray answered gruffly as he reluctantly pulled away from Benny’s mouth. And though he purposely didn’t look at Fraser, Ray didn’t sever the physical connection completely. Absently, possessively he stroked circles on Benny’s neck as he turned his attention to the paramedic.

"Detective, we should take him in for observation. He lost consciousness in the alley."

"Only for a moment," Benny chimed in hoarsely. Ray glanced at Benny briefly and felt a surge of anger.

"I know the drill. I’ll take care of this. "

***************

Ray sat in the dark corner of his bedroom and watched the even rise and fall of his friend’s chest.It was the time of the morning when the house was still, quiet. The calm of the house had done nothing to alleviate the feeling that he was going to crawl out of his skin.

They’d gotten to his house late and Ray was grateful for that. The kids had already been put to bed and their parents, though not asleep were in their room. Ma had long since retired and he figured Frannie must have still been out on some disastrous date that they would have to listen to a detailed recap of over breakfast.

On the drive to the house there had been virtually no conversation. Ray simply gripped the steering wheel tightly more of less to keep from doing the same to Benny. And Benny in his turn said nothing. At the house they’d gone silently through the motions of getting settled for the night with only the most perfunctory of conversation.

"Here I got these out of the laundry. They’re Tony’s so they might be a little short in the leg."

He handed the t-shirt and sweat pants to Benny.

"Thank you, Ray."

And that’s was how it went. Once Benny was settled in his bedroom, Ray set his alarm and settled in on the couch. Every two hours he woke Benny up. He hadn’t really needed the help of the alarm. After tossing and turning for most the night, Ray finally gave up on sleep. Sunrise was fast approaching. He’d abandoned the couch in favor of the chair in his room. In an effort to find some kind of calm, some kind of peace, he’d been staring at his friend for the last hour. Benny was safe in his house, not in an alley, possibly bleeding to death.

"I am awake Ray."

Vecchio startled just a bit. He’d gotten distracted by his thoughts and missed the change in Fraser’s breathing from sleep to wakefulness.

He watched as Fraser swung his legs over the side of the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. The room brightened with the warm glow.

"Other than a little bit of a headache," the ex-Mountie’s fingers gingerly touched the area where his head had hit the wall, "other than that I’m fine Ray. No concussion."

And something in that tone, maybe the implied I told you so, shattered the hope of Ray finding any calm in that moment.

"When I hand you the phone," the Detective responded, voice tight with anger, "and tell you to call for backup. I mean call for backup. You don’t have a gun. What the hell did you think you were gonna do? Do you know what it felt like to see you go down like that? I have never been that worried, about anyone. Not even with Angela. Maybe cause she has a gun. You’re a hockey coach. A civilian, do you even know what that means. I don’t think you know what that means."

"Imagine my distress," the ex-Mountie replied quietly, "to see my...to see you run after that man without backup. To know that in the minutes it would take other officers to arrive, you might face ambush. To imagine that perhaps he had accomplices and you would then be outnumbered and perhaps hurt. I - ...I’ve never experienced that kind of fear before.

Ray leaned toward Benny.

"I had a gun."

"One against how many potential others?"

An impasse.

"Unless you want to explain what happened to the whole family and have Ma fussing all over you, you better get dressed so I can take you home."

As he stalked out of the room, it took almost more than Ray had not to punch a hole in the wall

************

Sprawling himself on the couch, remote in hand Ray clicked absently through the channels. The nearly complete silence of the house on a Saturday was rare and Ray allowed himself to savor it. It had been a hard week. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Benny for seven days. Not since he dropped him at his house after their date had gone horribly wrong.

They hadn’t been calling them that, ‘dates’, but Ray had been thinking a lot the last seven days.

The aftermath of the dinner, Ma had forced Ray to invite Benny to, changed things. There had always been incidental touches between them. A hand on the elbow, a squeeze to the shoulder, a hand to the small of the back. After that dinner with the family, those same touches seemed to have purpose. The first meal they had together after that dinner was more structured, planned. Instead of just dropping by practice, Ray called Benny and arranged a specific time to pick him up, told him the place they were going in advance, put on a suit different from the one he’d worked in that day. They had been dating. Alone on a quiet Saturday afternoon, Ray could admit that to himself.

A week ago he and his date stepped out of a restaurant in time to hear a woman screaming. Following the sound of her voice they found a woman struggling to right herself on the sidewalk. Although shaken, she was able to give a description and point out which direction her assailant took. Ray had handed his cell phone to Fraser and somehow after that everything went to hell.

Benny fighting with the armed perp in the alley, Benny’s head snapping into the unyielding brick wall, Benny crumpling to the asphalt, images that flashed in Ray’s head at random moments in his day. And he’d really blown it afterwards.

_Hi, Benny sorry I outed you in front of the whole city._ He knew that there was at least one stringer on the scene from the Chicago Tribune. He had checked the paper almost obsessively looking for mention of the queer new hockey coach or the queer cop. And even in hindsight, Ray didn’t think that there was anything he could have done to stop himself. Fraser getting hurt had freaked him out badly and he’d just needed to reassure himself. He couldn’t help that it was in front of a full crime scene worth of people.

He’d spent part of the week waiting for the other shoe to drop at work. Waiting for Huey to open his mouth, but that hadn’t happened yet either. All that had happened was the person he wanted to see the most he hadn’t seen at all.

Just as Ray turned his thoughts to food as a possible distraction, there was a insistent knock on his door.

"Please let this be a mis-delivered pizza," he said to the emptiness as he tossed the remote aside and headed for the front door.

He found Fraser standing on his porch shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"May I come in Ray?"

"Um, sure Benny, where’s Dief?"

"One of the Gamez children is having a birthday party today. He was invited."

"Ah, that wolf’s got some life." Ray stepped back so that Benny could come into the house.

"You want something to drink? I think we still have some of that tea you gave Ma."

Benny followed Ray into the kitchen. "No, that’s fine."

"You don’t mind if I have make a cup of coffee."

"No, Ray. I thought perhaps," he continued as Ray went through the coffee making process, "it would help, maybe help us both if we said what we were doing, out loud. So that we would each know who we are. So that we would both know what we were doing."

 

Ray moved to the small table in the kitchen the kids sometimes used for homework and sat down. He sipped from his instant coffee and said looked at Fraser expectantly.

"Okay, well then okay. When, when I was younger, there was a boy. I had a quite fierce crush on him."

"Was it mutual?"

"I think so. We were so young that it only really manifested in the great difficulty his parents and my grandparents had in getting us to separate for meals and bedtime. always wanting to play together. My grandmother had a devil of a time sometimes getting me to come in the evenings. To come away."

"You were a little boy with a best friend. That’s how little boys with best friends are."

"Yes, but then when we were older, it was more intense and there seemed to be physical pain at the separations."

"Thought you were gonna die did you?"

"Something like that yes."

"You were in love with him."

"Yes, I was in love with him."

"What happened?"

"Our paths diverged. He...he had some setbacks. I, something happened. I tracked him to a remote cabin in a place called Fortitude Pass. A storm came. I would have frozen to death if he hadn’t allowed me inside the cabin. I held him that night, loved him as best I could. The storm abated some time in the night and the next morning I arrested him. He was my first arrest."

Fraser’s grip tightened on the sink and his knuckles went white.

Ray knew this story. In black and white, without the blood, without this pain. Benny’s first arrest. When he’d done the background check, the Detective had mostly been interested in the last few months of his friend’s career. Not the first months, but he’d still skimmed part of an article that mentioned the former Mountie’s early career including that first arrest where he had tracked and brought in a killer single-handedly. And there was nothing in that recounting that ever would have suggested what Ray was witnessing in his kitchen. Nothing in the straightforward black and white to suggest how badly Benton Fraser had broken his own heart.

The Detective finally understood why the career that looked so sterling on paper was a career that his friend did not seem to want to talk about in depth, book ended as it was by the two devastating losses.

"Where is he now?"

"Life sentence," Ben answered hoarsely. He lifted his eyes from the tile, looked directly at Ray.

"I sometimes think if I had had the courage when we were older, before...if I had just said something."

Vecchio was out of his chair so quickly it teetered then clattered noisily to the floor. Benny flinched, but didn’t move. Ray took one step to him and cradled the side of his friend’s face with his hand. He pressed his lips to Benny’s cheek. His voice was a low whisper in the ex-Mountie’s ear.

"This isn’t the same thing. I’m not planning any crime sprees."

Fraser jerked himself away from Ray, but Ray fastened his hand around Fraser’s bicep. Vecchio tightened his grip slightly and felt an answering tension from Benny, but he stopped trying to pull away. A few more seconds and Ray felt the muscle relax a little under his hand.

Fraser swallowed and spoke softly.

"I haven’t seen or heard from you in seven days, each day is a step closer to the rest of my life, our lives. I am deeply sorry for the worry that I caused you. We were merely passing through Chicago, but there was an incident with Diefenbaker and an ice cream truck. The Consulate was instrumental in resolving the situation with the ice cream truck driver. I offered my services in return. You are right. I don’t know how to be a civilian, not really. I was only going to stay long enough to repay that debt. I was flattered to be considered for my current position. I wasn’t going to say yes. But I have."

"I’ve seen you on the ice. Benny, you love hockey."

Ray watched as his friend’s finger flicked over his eyebrow.

"There was a specific reason that I chose to say yes. Love of hockey wasn’t the reason. I do hope," he finished solemnly, "that I haven’t ruined my chance to be your civilian."

The night Ma had sent Ray to get Benny for dinner leapt to Ray’s mind. His grip tightened on Benny’s arm. This time to steady himself. His clearance allowed him to enter through the team entrance. As he had on other occasions, he greeted Andre the security guard who worked the night shift.

"Hey Andre, how’s it hangin’?"

"Just about right Vecchio, just about right. Your ol’ man is still on the ice."

And Ray had simply nodded and kept walking. It didn’t really strike him until he had walked several feet exactly what the other man had said. Usually it was Coach Fraser or Coach, but this time, Ray turned suddenly to ask Andre what he meant, but the security guard had already disappeared on his rounds. It niggled at Ray for few seconds more until he walked through the door that led down to the ice and saw Benny skating.

Powerful, beautiful, his old man.

His old man whose gaze had shifted and was now looking at Ray with a perfect replication of the expression from the newspaper photo. Grief.

Benny was still grieving what had happened in the North West Territories and he had already begun to grieve what hadn’t happened yet in Chicago. Ray had barely been able to stand that look in a black and white photo. In living color, this close, in his kitchen, it was unbearable.

He leaned just a little and the other man expelled a sigh and leaned the rest of the way.

Ray had kissed his wife in the house before, in probably every room of the house. But not like this. He wanted inside, all the way inside. As he licked his way into his Fraser’s mouth. He tasted what he thought might have been remnants of the nasty tea Fraser liked to drink, but in the warm heat of the other man’s mouth it tasted good, sweet. He wanted inside so that the other man could feel and know from the inside out that he would never do anything to put that look on Fraser’s face, that the grieving was unnecessary.

The brush of fingers over Ray’s nipples made him shiver. "Make love to me."

Ray stilled and shifted his mouth away from Fraser’s.

"I can’t make love to you in my mother’s house."

The comeback was husky. "I have heard you say on more than one occasion that this was your house Ray."

"You got jokes?" Ray pressed his forehead against the other man’s, before he took a fortifying breath and stepped back.

"We need to slow this down."

The grief started to creep across Benny’s face.

"No, no, no caro." Ray assured as he stroked his fingers across Benny’s cheek.

"I’m divorced. Less than six months. I don’t want to get it wrong again."

"What you were doing before Ray was very much right." Ray laughed and pulled Benny into his arms. He stroked his fingers through Benny’s hair as the other man’s hands pushed up under his shirt and flattened against his skin. The Detective couldn’t help but shiver again at the heat in the touch, the need.

"When was the last time you were with someone," he asked quietly. The hands on his back jerked and Ray tightened his embrace.

"Fortitude Pass," came the soft reply. And Ray had expected that, but hearing it out loud. He couldn’t do anything for a moment, but hold Benny a little bit tighter.

Vecchio’s voice was gentle when he spoke again. "We have to slow this down, way down."

Fraser tried to shift out of the embrace. Ray wouldn’t let him.

"Be still, caro. Listen to me. When my wife and I were together, in the beginning I thought it was perfect. I thought everything about it was perfect. And it fell apart."

Ray’s hand stroked up into the softness of Benny’s hair. Got lost there a few minutes before he found his way back to making his point.

"This isn’t perfect Benny, from the jump it’s not perfect at all. What I did the other night - . I could have gotten you fired or hurt. I didn’t think. Couldn’t think. This whole week I been checking the papers to see if there was anything, waiting for one of the beat cops who was on scene to start something, spread something. I have to be more careful with this, with you."

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be sorry. It’s nothing to be sorry about, just...slow down."

"Let go of me."

"Oh Benny, please don’t -"

"I suspect if you don’t let go of me now Ray, the choice about going slow will be moot."

"Oh, oh" Ray said as he stepped back quickly and blushed. "Right."

"Um, before you got here I was gonna order a pizza. Did you eat today?"

"I was so nervous about coming over here. I just had some tea, I think. I really don’t remember." He shrugged helplessly.

"Okay, okay. I’ll make us something. I’ll make spaghetti."

"Spaghetti? You’re going to cook for me?"

"Well I’m not as good as Ma - ."

"I’m sure you’re a fine cook."

"So, you staying?"

The hesitation was like a physical presence in the room. Ray put down the pan he’d just pulled off the shelf and reached for Benny’s hand. He brushed his thumb over Benny’s knuckles.

"We don’t have to take lunch slow. We’ve done this part. This part is easy." Benny’s unexpected, rich laughter filled the kitchen, pushing all the tension away.

"Can I do anything to help?

"Keep me company. Just stay with me."

"Alright Ray."

end


End file.
